A year ago I’d never heard of a chimney cake. But then I ate one on vacation in the Czech Republic and decided it was the best food item of the whole trip.

In Prague’s Old Town Square, I kept seeing signs advertising trdelniks and gave in to my curiosity when the scent lured me into a small, busy shop. A dozen of the cone-shaped pastries were rotating on spits over a charcoal flame, like kabobs. The sweet yeast dough is wrapped around a dowel that gives it its hollow form, then rolled in cinnamon sugar.

The chimney cakes were selling like hotcakes. I got one whose interior was lined with chocolate sauce and ate it while walking back to my hotel. The chocolate smeared my chin and dripped onto my passport holder, but I was too happy to mind.

Back home, I Googled “trdelnik Los Angeles” and it didn’t appear they were sold here. Really? In cosmopolitan Southern California, home to probably hundreds of international cuisines, one couldn’t buy a trdelnik?

“It’s possible I’ll never enjoy another one in my lifetime,” I wrote here sadly. “Maybe I should quit newspapers, learn to bake and open an international chain of trdelnik shops — but under an easier-to-spell name.”

A cinnamon-sugar chimney cake with Nutella filling from Anaheim’s House of Chimney Cakes. It may be the West Coast’s first shop specializing in the pastry. (Photo by David Allen)

Bins of toppings like sprinkles, caramel corn and Oreo pieces await use at House of Chimney Cakes in Anaheim. (Photo by David Allen)

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Andrea Toth puts swirl soft serve into a chimney cone for an Oreo Overload at House of Chimney Cakes. (Photo by David Allen)

But then my colleague Robin Deemer, a German food fan, alerted me that by Googling “chimney cake Los Angeles,” she’d found a hit: a Pasadena-based business named Sweet n’ Hollow.

And shortly after that, reader Helen McAlary messaged me that she’d seen a “coming soon” sign in Anaheim for a business named House of Chimney Cakes.

Sweet! First I couldn’t find trdelniks, and soon I would have choices.

By the way, trdelnik is Czech, but the dessert originated in the Hungarian-speaking part of what is now Romania, where it’s called kurtoskalacs. Chimney cake is the American-friendly version.

Sweet n’ Hollow does not have a brick-and-mortar location. When I contacted George Panossian and his wife, Sevana, they were doing fairs, food events and private parties.

But since January, Sweet n’ Hollow has had a stand at Smorgasburg LA, an open-air collection of food stalls and other vendors south of downtown Los Angeles (at 785 Bay St.) each Sunday. I made the trip out in February. (If you want to do the trip by public transit, go to Pershing Square and take the Local 18 bus to Seventh and Alameda streets.)

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Panossian and his crew were busy rolling dough and cooking chimney cakes on spits over a propane flame. They sell “traditional” chimney cakes with Nutella filling with add-ons of coconut, peanuts, walnuts or Oreo crumbs, or “chimney cones,” tapered at the bottom, with hand-scooped ice cream.

I went the traditional route, getting one with Nutella, like I’d had in Prague. A bit like a cinnamon roll, soft on the inside but lightly crunchy on the outside, the chimney cake brought back pleasant memories. Especially since I walked with it as I ate, just as in Prague, and got some Nutella on my face.

Panossian, who is of Armenian and Spanish extraction, told me by phone that he’d had his first trdelnik in Prague in 2015. The smell, the warmth, the Nutella all made an impression. “When they give it to you fresh off the grill, it’s amazing,” he said.

The sports video editor ordered the cooking equipment sent to his home in Glendale to try to make his own. He couldn’t get the consistency quite right, so he and Sevana took a vacation to Slovenia for lessons, kind of on a lark. But they mastered it, and decided to turn their skill and equipment into a side business.

They did events and parties throughout 2017. Things are picking up in 2018: Besides Smorgasburg, they will be part of the high-profile 626 Night Market this summer at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia. A shop may be next.

They were beaten to the punch on that by House of Chimney Cakes, which went right for a store rather than starting with events.

“We’re the only brick and mortar on the West Coast that I know of,” co-owner Omar Lara said.

Lara told me by phone that his partner, Szandra Szabo, who is Hungarian, introduced him to kurtoskalacs, the Hungarian name for trdelniks, while they visited her family. She asked if kurtoskalacs could be found in America. “I’ve never heard of it,” replied Lara, a chef.

Impressed by the pastry, though, Lara decided chimney cakes smelled equally of cinnamon and opportunity. Lara, who is half-Mexican, half-Spanish, figured out how to make them with help from a Szabo family recipe and in ovens rather than over a flame.

While they sell traditional chimney cakes, the emphasis is on ones with soft-serve ice cream and various toppings. You can build your own, with sauces, fillings and premium toppings like cheesecake bites, caramel corn or Twix candy. Or you can get one of the Signature Creations, festooned with items like whole cookies, ladyfingers or, in the case of the Everyday Birthday Cake, a mini-cupcake with a candle.

“Americans aren’t familiar with it,” Lara said of chimney cakes. “If I didn’t do it with ice cream, nobody would try it. We had to do it from the ‘wow’ factor, you know what I mean? A little over the top. The traditional people don’t like it with ice cream or what I say is the Instagrammable stuff.”

At both businesses, some customers call it — wait for it — a “churro cone.” They aren’t churros, but I love it as an example of people making cross-cultural connections. Lara and Panossian accept the nickname.

I was debating whether I could justify driving from Rancho Cucamonga to Anaheim on a workday to eat dessert. My boss was OK with it, but time was a factor. So last Saturday, I headed to Mousetown by car.

It’s a cute shop with a pink sign. Seating is at a few tables on the sidewalk. Foregoing the menu’s host of options, I opted again for the traditional type, with only cinnamon sugar and Nutella.

“Our O.G. original chimney cakes are more like Hungary,” employee Ricardo Rodriguez explained. “Most people come for the Signature Creations. The European people, they like getting the O.G.”

Put me in the European category, s’il vous plait.

Andrea Toth, who’s Hungarian, rolled out the dough, wrapped it around a dowel and put it in the oven. While she finished up an Oreo Overload for a previous customer, Zsolt Szelei, another Hungarian, pulled my pastry from the oven, shook cinnamon sugar on it, lathered the interior with Nutella and placed the warm pastry in a wrapper for me.

I took it outside to one of the tables. A chimney cake is a little awkward to eat: Do you pull it apart? Do you bite into it? I did some of each.

Pretty soon I had Nutella on my fingers and cinnamon sugar dusting my pants. For a few moments, I was transported back to Prague — or maybe heaven.

David Allen, the O.G. columnist, writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, visit insidesocal.com/davidallen, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook, follow @davidallen909 on Twitter and buy “Getting Started” and “Pomona A to Z.”

Since 1997, David Allen has been taking up valuable newsprint and pixels at the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, where he is a columnist and blogger (insidesocal.com/davidallen). Among his specialties: city council meetings, arts and culture, people, places, local history, dining and a log in a field that resembled the Loch Ness monster. The Illinois native has spent his newspaper career in California, starting in 1987 at the Santa Rosa News-Herald and continuing at the Rohnert Park-Cotati Clarion, Petaluma Argus-Courier and Victor Valley Daily Press. A resident of Claremont who roots for the St. Louis Cardinals and knows far too much about Marvel Comics, the Kinks and Frank Zappa's Inland Valley years, he is the author of two collections of columns: 'Pomona A to Z' and 'Getting Started.'